A Little Science Learning...

We are 2nd grade scientists!  We are learning about how to be a scientist, and one of the main things that we have discovered is that scientists ask a LOT of questions and they conduct experiments to try to find the answers to those questions.  Earlier this week we conducted an investigation activity with our friend Freddy the Worm.  See Freddy doesn't know how to swim.  And his life preserver was stuck underneath the cup!  Our scientist friends were tasked with figuring out how to get his life preserver out from under the cup and onto Freddy WITHOUT touching anything with their hands.  They each had a paperclip that they could use to touch / move things. 

They each had a paperclip that they could use to touch / move things.  Most groups were able to successfully put Freddy's life preserver one and safe his life.  What a great bunch of problem solving scientist we have in our class!

Meet the Teacher

I loved seeing all of your bright shining faces tonight at Meet the Teacher.  We are going to have an awesome 2nd grade year.  Be sure to get a good nights sleep and I will see you tomorrow morning at 8:00 or so...  :)

Love,
Mrs. Heath

Our Sports Classroom

Our Word Wall

We will be looking for lots of interesting new words to add to our wall this year!

Calendar Math

Go Team!  Boise State is in the center because it is the best.... :)

Our reading strategies

Literacy Center Rotations

He's a bit big for 2nd grade, by my son Colt was happy to model our frame for us!

Library

More library pictures and our writing tubs

Library and our science focus wall / whiteboard

Meeting area

Guided reading table / Mrs. Heath's desk.

Take home bags, writing table, and our reading incentive keychains

Mailboxes

All Star Work Board

Attendance / Lunch Count Recording

Our classroom is decorated and ready to go...we just need some students! The pennants hanging up are either local teams or teams that my family follows.  Feel free to bring in "your" teams pennant and we'll hang it as well.  Enjoy a sneak peak of what it looks like and I'll see you on Monday at Meet the Teacher!

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Back to School Time is Here!!

I can always tell when it is back to school time because my debit card gets well used at office supply stores, teacher stores, dollar stores, Target, and Wal-Mart.  There are just so many FUN things to buy!  I have a bit of a school supply obsession (or so my husband claims).  My BIGGEST school supply weakness is Sharpies.  Oh, how I LOVE my Sharpies.  They have such bright bold colors and different pen widths too!!  This year I found a new type of Sharpie and I ADORE them!

There are many other things that a busy teacher needs.  This year my back to school list includes:  hot glue gun, blue Solo cups, Popsicle sticks, orange material, beads, magnets, pencils, erasers, name tags, books, 3 hole punch, Post it Notes (my other obsession),  lots of new sport-themed classroom decorations, stuffed sports balls,  six different sports pennants, plastic book bags, stickers, self sticking labels, and of course a new outfit for the first day! 

Of course the best part of back to school isn't all of the supplies...it is the anticipation of getting a great new group of students to teach.  This year I am extra excited because I will get to have some of my 1st graders from last year in my new 2nd grade class.  What a lucky teacher I am!!  Stop back by in the next day or two to check out pictures of our new classroom.  We are going to ROCK a sports/teamwork theme this year.  I can't wait!

Love,

Mrs. Heath 

3D Shape Museum

Take a look at our collection of everyday 3D Shapes.  Students collected the shapes and then sorted them into the correct category.  We then used the items to play a game of 3D Shape Bingo.  They filled in their game board with the labels "sphere, cylinder, cube, rectangular prism, and triangular prism".  Mrs. Heath randomly chose real items to call out.  The students then marked off the shape of that item.  It was a FANTASTIC way to practice identifying 3D shapes by name. We discovered that cylinders are the easiest 3D shape to find examples of ...BY FAR!!!!

Fly Butterflies, Fly!

Our butterfly project came to a (mostly) successful end.  We began our journey with 6 caterpillars.  All six formed chrysalis, and 5 hatched from their chrysalis.  Unfortunately, after hatching one of our butterflies perished in the cage.  In the end we were able to release 4 Painted Lady butterflies into the wild to continue the life cycle.  What an interesting, hands on activity this was for the students! 

After releasing our butterflies, the students created a model of the butterfly lifecycle with pipe cleaner caterpillars, masking tape chrysalis, and student create butterflies.  They are truly works of art!

A Trip to the Zoo

I have to admit, I was VERY worried about how our zoo field trip would work out.  The weather forecasts for the day were ominous to say the least!  But thank goodness Mother Nature was on our side and it worked out to be a simply GORGEOUS day!  We are grateful for all of our parents and grandparents that joined us and helped out.  The students were able to apply their science learning as they viewed the animals in a variety of habitats.  The baby giraffe seemed to be a favorite of all, as did the newly remodeled aquarium.  A special thank you to our PTO for making our field trip possible! 

Homophones

Homophones are tricky, tricky words for our first grade friends!  When students are learning to write  they often times write the sounds they hear and then look at the words to see if they "look right".   As students' reading and writing vocabularies have been expanding we have noticed something interesting ... they can spell words different ways and they both look right.  How can that be?  Aaahhhh... it is those tricky homophones!  We can write the word plane or plain, both are spelled right but they don't mean the same thing!  Students worked on creating homophone books to help them remember what each spelling means.  One resource we used was a fabulous book called "Dear Deer" 

The book has many examples of homophones and uses them in context to help with understanding.  Take a look at the examples of our homophone writing.